Running along part 2

And as expected, the Nike 10k Human race was an astounding success! Dubbed “The Day the World Runs”, the Nike Human Race 10K 2009 is hosted in 22 countries on October 24, 2009. Singapore was the only South-East Asian country to host the Nike+ Human Race 10K and had a decent participation of 7,877 out of the 10,000 spaces taken up. Anyhow the Cow congratulates everyone who crossed the finishing line. Well done!

How did Nike do it? What did Nike do to make the Human race THE marathon to be at?

Price

At 20 bucks for registration, one can expect to get a goodie bag containing the ever-distinguishable Red Human Race 10k t-shirt, the timing chip, number tag. This puts the Nike race at the top for being the cheapest marathon to take part in.

For everyone
The most hyped marathon in the runner's calendar comes across as running-for-a-bigger-cause-while-having-fun event. Well unlike other more serious marathons, Nike has made this more of a leisure run, a respectable yet manageable distance of 10km appealing not only to the hardcore runners but everybody else.

Limited Spaces

As advertised, the 10k Human race only allows for 10 000 participants only, making each and every slot a hot item. Everyone wants a piece of that pie. In fact, two weeks after the closure of the first round of registrations, Nike opened up a second round of limited slots for those who missed the original window of opportunity by having a booth at the Wisma Atria flagship store in town. The cow heard that the figures of those who queued were nearly triple that of the intended slots of 500. True to their word, Nike politely turned away the 501th person in the queue. All the more making the chance to participate in the race more appealing...

Great Logistical Support

How can Nike host an awesome race and not have even better post-race events to mark the end of an awesome morning? Well Nike being Nike made the event a memorable one through its affiliates from Starbucks (free coffee) and services such as free massages. This sets the Nike race apart from the usual more-concentrated than ever free Milo dispensing van familiar to secondary schools' sports day. Of course the support crew and volunteers deserve special mention too.

Being Nike

Of course, you wouldn't expect anything but the best from Nike. For making the morning of 24 October truly one to remember for the 7,877 Nike-ers who crossed the finishing line. Surely if you haven't had your dosage of healthy exercising, signing up for this race would be a great start. Now all you need to do is wait next year. QED.

So for the most fun at the cheapest price, the Nike Human Race 10k 2010 is the place to be come 24 October next year. Why wait? Just Do It.

Giving ads a local twist

Dear Singaporean Cow,

Is advertising in Asia, particularly in Singapore, still very much influenced by Western Culture?


A country without much heritage or distinct culture will stand to lose out while trying to etch its identity on a global scale. Singapore, as young as she happens to be, is in that spot of trouble. While other countries can boast of several USPs (unique selling points) in terms of culture; think South Africa with the wildlife safari and its many tribes, France with the arts and renaissance, the Singapore culture or the lack thereof plays no part in forging out an identity succinct enough for ad agencies to tap on. Therefore, advertising in Singapore do tend to bleed off the western culture.

Where one looks for local flavor in a Singaporean-made ad, he might find something so skewed with western culture that it is actually hard to distinguish the former and the later. The 'lahs' and the 'lors' notwithstanding, according to Mr Farrokh Madon, winner of the first Effie Singapore Grand Prix Prize for the 'Raffles Place Ghost' advertising campaign stresses that not only does adding a 'lah' to an advertisement fail to 'localize' an ad, it even comes across as being condescending and prudish, something that the Singaporean Cow fully agrees on.

In the end, the limitations of being a small country proves to be a bane in more ways than one, until one local advertisement burst out from the rest, the tag of being heavily influenced by western culture will indefinitely stay on.


The above question was taken from the article on the Asian perspectives regarding advertising in Singapore. It was directed to Mr Farrokh Madon, the executive creative director of McCann Erickson Singapore. However, the Cow had tried his best to answer the question from a Communication student's perspective.

For Mr Farrokh's responses and more details, please refer to the article by Shermaine Wong in the Today newspaper 27 October Page B5.

Running along.

Dear Singaporean Cow,

Why are there so many marathons nowadays in Singapore, and why can't I join the Nike Human race 2009 since it opened up for registration 3 days ago only?

Dear readers,

AHM 2009, Adidas Sundown 2009, Standard Chartered 2009, Yellow Ribbon Prison Run 2009, Wave Run 2009, Mizuno Wave Run 2009.

All of the above mentioned are a few of the more well known marathons held here in Singapore. This year alone, there have been or will be close to 40 marathons (Singapore Marathon Calender), a humongous jump from five years ago where marathons were a passing mention. Needless to say, Singaporeans have been picking up on the latest fitness craze of running the average distance of 67 bus stops under an hour. (an ≠ a e i o u)

While being popularized by the many sporting outfits in Singapore (namely Nike, Adidas, Asics, New Balance) with crazy discounts and hard sell image branding, Singaporeans themselves have also picked up on the latest craze thanks to a dedicated sports mall (Velocity), boutique fitness gyms and the 'idea' of running on a closed highway or tunnel. Its not surprising to see smart polished executives sporting a bright sporty shoe bag on their way to work or having half of Singapore come to East Coast Park every evening. In fact, to carry a shoe bag is like walking around with a sparkling Rolex; somewhat a status quo.

From the Cow's experiences, marathons are totally different from the normal evening runs. When you have a constant support from strangers cheering you on, lots of eye candy and the fearful shame of letting the male ego falter (i.e give up while girls overtake you), one will be surprised how fast their legs take them to the end point. More often than not, the Cow overhears an exclamation on how 10km not feel like 10 clicks (kilometers) at all.

As to the answer for the second question, the Cow is also shaking his head there. Of all marathons, the Nike 10K Human race seems to be the marathon of the year. Few marathons can boast of a sell out race, however the Nike marathon sets the record for the fastest sell out with regards to marathons. The speed of which how 10 000 slots can be snapped up in an instant still amazes him, one would expect that at an U2 concert. But if you are wondering if the Cow is taking part in that race, the answer is no. He too was 3 days late.

However if you factor in some marketing or advertising sense, you can start to see why the Nike marathon is so successful. Nike seems to have Singaporeans eating out of their hands in terms of marketing and marketing only. How so? The break down of that would be in the up and coming post. The Cow has an exam to take care off.

Got a comment or a question for the Cow? Email away at cowsdontdrinkmilk@gmail.com.

INTERNET AND POLITICS

...

Moo-vie

Dear blog, we were supposed to post a video of us for this week's topics. 

I swore never to show this to anyone ever again, but i guess nobody's gonna read this. So what the heck, 

I never once imagined i would be wearing tight black leather stuff prancing around SIM in the middle of the night. Then again, i never once imagined i would strike Toto.. FAKEEE haha.

I'm MJ and rocker singer in this vid.

Video done for MUS 115. 1st sem.

Har Har Har.

GOOGLE

The ultimate search engine. Unrivaled, uncontested!

Today, i would like to focus on Google's Money making attractions. Ad Sense and Ad words.

What do these 2 programs actually do?

An everyday person inserts AdSense JavaScriptcode into a webpage. Each time this page is visited, Google's AdSense registers the visitation and logs 1 visit into the counter of tracker.

Once the minimum of USD$100 is reached, Google pays that person his/her due sum. AdSense allows the everyday user to advertise on their blog/forums and get paid at the same time. Of course companies who want to advertise pay both Google and the user for this new medium of advertisment.

Touch.

 Have you seen anything cooler?  I was blown away when i saw this vid. Imagine the countless of possibilities that one can do. Splitting a bill 5 ways never been easier. The mouse? a redundant piece of old technology that will not be produced 5 years from now. Where does this lead us to? Touch interactive surfaces everywhere? 

It could have started off from just glowing feedback like this iBar concept, which is kinda cool i might add.

Of course, Microsoft brought it to a whole new level. A interactive surface which helps you open

your files, drag, add, copy and paste files from your hp to anywhere else? A-freaking-mazing.

Electronic Business/Commerce

E - Business 101

"e-business (e’biz’nis) – the transformation of key business processes through the use of Internet technologies".

They include research and development, marketing, manufacturing and inbound and outbound logistics. The buy-side e-commerce transactions with suppliers and the sell-side e-commerce transactions with customers can also be considered to be key business processes.

They have no physical presence on the high-streets and seek to minimize customer-service and support through enabling ‘web self-service’.

In the dot-com era they used to be known as ‘pure-plays’. For example Amazon (www.amazon.com) and eBay (www.ebay.com) are the world’s two biggest e-businesses.

E - Commerce 101

Transactional e-commerce site. These enable purchase of products online. The main business contribution of the site is through sale of these products. The sites also support the business by providing information for consumers that prefer to purchase products offline. These include retail sites, travel sites and online banking services.

Websites like Alienware and Dell which allow for some degree of customer interaction in customizing their computers are examples of E-Commerce.

https://entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/72732808.html

Just a heads up this makes an interesting read. 

Just had to.

Do you have a dirty mind?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Virtual Communities

MMORPGs - Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.

Second Life, WoW, Maplestory. PoQ ( 1 of the games i played before (=. )

Another life within a life.

Taken from Second Life.

" Second life is an online, 3D virtual world imagined and created by its residents."

Whatever happened to sports and going out!

2000 friends on FB/Friendster < 2 good friends

The negative connotations of the title don't do any justice to all those networking sites just lurking around in the Net. Still they deserve special mention on this blog.

1. MySpace 2. Friendster 3. Facebook

There are a great deal of social news sites on the internet, sometimes too many. Most of them are dormant and are no longer active, largely because they were poorly marketed and hence, never had an active community of users in the first place.

For instance, this webpage has a list of over 380 social news sites. Most of them are a waste of your time: they are riddled with spam or are so ill-promoted that they’ll never attract a critical mass of viewers or social news participants.

You don’t have a lot of time on your hands. You want a community that gives you fresh news on topics you care about. You want something that sends prospects and traffic while branding your website or business. You want a social news site with a long term returns on investment. 

Personally I'd rather stick to just FB.

Yes, 2 real life great friends beat 200000000 "friends" on FB.

Web browsers, Web pages, Web sites, Web Everything...

To the everyday person, a web browser is the furthest that they are exposed to. 

To others, a web browser is like simplified chinese, nowhere near the extent of difficulty and jargon they are familiar with.

To me, the web browser is a crucial part of my life. Without it, i would not be able to search for information i need, understand the otherwise absurdly foreign language or even translate anything.

Domain Names and the transition from IP numbers to text form addresses sure help simplify everything. 

Uses of Internet.

Brief Summary of what the Internet is all about.

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that interchange data by packet switching using the standardized Internet Protocol Suite(TCP/IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections, and other technologies.

The Internet carries various information resources and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer and file sharing, online gaming, and the inter-linked hypertext documents and other resources of the World Wide Web (WWW).

Inter - Intra net.

1. Internet = Public

Intranet = Private.

2. Internet > Intranet.

Taken off another blog which gives greater in-depth to the difference,

http://sharepointthegreat.blogspot.com/2009/01/internet-site-vs-intranet-site.html

What is the difference between an Internet and an intranet site? 

An intranet (or internal network), though hosted on a Web site, can only be accessed by people who are members of a specific network. They need to have a login and password that was assigned to them when they were added to the site by the site administrator. The intranet is commonly used as an internal tool for giving employees access to company information. Content is driven by business relevance, business rules and has increasingly become a common tool in larger organizations. An intranet is becoming more and more the preferred method for employees to interact with each other and the central departments in an organization, whether or not the organization has a Web presence. 

An internet site is a normal site that anyone on the internet can access (e.g., www.yahoo.com, www.google.com, etc.). You can set up a site for your company that can be accessed by anyone without any user name and password. The internet is used for public presence and a primary marketing tool managed typically by web programmers and a system administrator.

Internet Timeline in a nutshell. ( History )

The Internet sure came a long way since 1969.

Made a slideshow to allow you guys to rest your scroll-button finger for a minute.

A more detailed timeline:

Like the size of computers, everything else seems to be getting smaller..

from mobile phones to..

It can't be helped i guess

The reason why there are blogs, websites and cashless transactions

I N T E R N E T.

Fire, the wheel, the lightbulb then there's the Internet.

- Shem Moo

Introduction to the Internet.

Com 125

A MaLdocK Blog.